1. Personal-Professional Network

Like many people today, their online and social network lives virtually intertwine personal and professional interests. Twitter and Facebook are basically mass-media channels now, and somehow should be treated as such. But Path can become the social network of your closest business associates and confidantes, of which you can share more about you or your business, even sharing confidential issues with your trusted circle, or asking for feedback on certain issues or ideas.

2. Industry Contacts

If you’ve worked for years in a certain industry, you’ll be bound to know personally almost all of your key competitors, and even becoming friends to an extent. And many times, an industry-wide back channel to discuss issues that might impact a whole industry would become much more beneficial for the industry in general. Let’s say there’s a new tax law that would have significant impact on your industry – discussions on Path would help find the best solution and leverage the industry’s lobbying group. Another example would be, top executives sometimes like to update each other on what they are doing, although they are competitors – just so they can plan better, and or even just to share information. This can be done effectively on Path.

Read the rest of the post on Dailysocial.

So we got into an interesting conversation about Path – on Twitter, no less – yesterday, starting with this tweet:

So this led to the following interesting conversation about Path – highlighting that for some, Path is simply another social network with a nice app interface. Not the fault of users  - I believe Path may have some homework on iterating and suggesting on how best to use Path. I wonder how long it will take for people to figure out how to use Path more effectively?

Read the rest of the post on Dailysocial.

Let’s get through some points in the article first:

• most of the music labels work directly with the telcos to provide music content; and some content providers either aggregate content for smaller music labels, or develop their own artist roster to further capitalize the business potential of RBT.
• The RBT service itself uses premium SMS to charge customers, because it’s the simplest way to do it. But the system itself differs than standard premium SMS services, because where usually premium SMS services have servers that sit at the content providers and route through the telco charging system, RBT systems are installed on the telco side.

Read the rest of the post on Dailysocial.

This Is All Kinds Of Wrong of the Day: At the encouragement o…
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Saya (ceritanya) anggota band. Sebuah band yang berkat bantuan si Aldo ini, sempet manggung di sebuah acara musik rock internasional yang berlangsung di Jakarta. Band ini juga yang cuma punya sederet kecil prestasi, yang tidak termasuk pernah rilis album. Kenapa? File-file masternya hilang. Klasiklah, masalah-masalahnya.

Konon sih band ini udah malang melintang dari jaman Poster Cafe, ikut festival dan pensi sana-sini, dan seperti banyak band lainnya sempat vakum, gonta-ganti personil. Pernah juga lagunya tembus ke no.1 chart indie sebuah radio Jakarta, dan lagu lain malah nyaris masuk ke kompilasi dari radio tersebut. Yah, banyak nyaris-nyarisnya lah.

Kalau melihat dari sisi profesional gue, yang pernah jadi anak major label, materinya bagus kok. Gak boong. Cuma gak mainstream aja. Dan menurut gue, kalau diaransir sedikit lain dan dinyanyikan orang lain, mungkin bisa jadi lagu pop yang bagus. Nggak akan pernah tau, karena nggak pernah dikerjain.

Baca selanjutnya di aldosianturi.com.

1. Content and Context – the 21st century consumer consumes content as part of daily life. So an ecosystem that can provide a wide array of content (so not only specific to one type of media) would appeal to a wide range of audiences. Of course, context would have to be provided via recommendation engines, social networking and curating systems.
2. Access – access to the content is probably one of the most easiest ways to calculate, monitor and control usage of content; but in this context it relates more to the connection itself – the internet connection. A growing ecosystem cannot and will not exist without an internet connection, as the ecosystem ‘exists’ not only on the device, but in the service’s servers (now more popularly known as cloud computing).
3. Hardware – an ecosystem experience can be optimized with a device that is made for that ecosystem. The BlackBerry works best using RIM’s data packages, as does iPhones work the best with apps downloaded from the App Store.

My favorite example of this ecosystem was the BlackBerry ecosystem – RIM makes money from providing email services (back then they did not offer apps via Blackberry App World yet) = content. RIM makes money from the BIS/BES packages, and RIM makes money from selling BlackBerry devices. Unfortunately things are not working out for RIM since their content and hardware components are not compelling enough for the changing market, but the concept is sound. Another example would be themed handsets issued by Bakrie Telecom; a basic phone + themed services + charged access via SMS did well for them for their HP Hidayah line.

So the trifecta of  content + access + hardware is a winning formula, provided that the ecosystem keeps evolving to meet beyond the needs of the consumer.

Naturally at the heart of this ecosystem, as the final stage of the ecosystem’s development, I proposed a small touchscreen device as the portable screen for all the content and services provided. I even proposed that the UI should be wholly customizable, through ‘UI layers’ offered or sold by designers/programmers; and easily switchable to the default UI. Monetization could occur by selling content, but could also happen through advertising , CRM and data mining. So it become the TV, the game device, the ebook reader, social network browser, internet browser … something that everyone can bring everywhere; but most of the companies I approached said, “don’t Indonesians hate the touch screen?” Then of course, a few months later the iPad was launched.

I still think the potential long-term market for this content + access + hardware ecosystem still exists in Indonesia, even with ecosystems from Apple and Google are already partly in place, but as it is not a simple thing, it will require a company with significant resources and power to license/partner for all the content, and have the sales capabilities to create the advertising experiences (as opposed to just sell ad banners). The closest thing that exists in the Indonesian market of this concept is Bakrie Telecom’s AhaPAD, which I think can only succeed when they can break the USD 100 ‘sweet spot’ price for tablets and provide a more simpler, seamless interface to purchase and access all the content and services.

This is an idea I’ve basically been sitting on for 2+years, but I decided to share it. Because knowing the idea is one thing, making it a reality – and having the expertise to do it – is another. My concept is definitely imperfect, and it will take many people to shape it into a feasible, relevant consumer offering. So, who can make it into a reality?

Then we’re forced to commute on roads filled with people who have not fully realized the blessings of the day and fixate on what is missing from their minds and hearts, usually happiness – as true happiness can only come to those who can properly count their blessings. Hence the frustration and anger makes us creatures who can only act and react, holding on to things and concepts that we perceive bring happiness – new BlackBerries, food, a new piece of clothing – but are only objects we try to give a name and equate it with happiness and contentedness. And of course, these things only bring us a fleeting sense of  happiness, as they are not the essence of the happiness we seek. Advertising and consumerism has tricked us – by our own fault – that we can attain happiness here.

We work hard to get money, more if possible, because money buys happiness. It actually does, but it doesn’t last, so we need more money. We become greedy, we work harder and encounter more work stress, then we try to buy ourselves out of misery through our indulgences and escapism. And then the days, weeks, go on, and this vicious cycle continues indefinitely, simply because Jakarta does not give us time to properly see the big picture. And many of us forget who we are and what truly makes us happy.

I woke up this morning after a nightmare – I was yelling at everyone at sight because of something – and woke up with a pain in my chest, one that couldn’t be resolved until I wrote this post. When contemplating the ideas to go on this post, it came to me in flashes – how I’ve lived my life; my secret, unconscious expectations; and dissatisfaction… and a sort of longing for something. I took another 30 minutes to let it all collect and organize itself into something more congruous before starting writing… something that I think would be a luxury to most Jakartans.

We are all victims of  our own secret expectations; of our misdirected chase for happiness – when we should be looking within, and counting our blessings as we have them now. So from today, I’m going to start to try and let go of those secret expectations, and just be grateful for what I have.

It took me a year away from Jakarta to finally formulate this into proper words. If you live in Jakarta, hopefully you have time to think about this too.

Let me move back a bit.

Point 1: many people are claiming that ‘the end is near’, due to the seemingly frequent amount of natural disasters, freak accidents, shootings, murder, war and other terrifying, doomsayer-supporting things. The fact is, since time immemorial, natural disasters do happen on an alarming scale – it’s just that now, with internet and social media, every piece of news speeds around the world very quickly, and bad news travels fast. The earthquake in Japan pretty much got global attention in less than an hour, maximum, at least for those people connected to the internet. And with the amount of information going around, it’s tempting to connect the dots and reach conclusions that may or may not be true. But thus, the speed that the internet spreads information and delivers it to us, has influenced our perception of the world.

Point 2: we used to live in a world with relatively centralized media. The newspapers, TV networks and radio stations were huge, and their curation and management of information to the world practically influenced everybody on the planet. News outlets would compete on breaking the same news; TV would play the same shows, and radios would play the same music, thus bringing “mainstream” to life. Today, media is decentralized – millions of blogs reside on the internet, competing for the same attention with established news websites. Social networks compound that with personal views of millions of people about virtually everything, and media curation, once the task of the centralized media, is gradually moving to the people themselves.

Point 3: With centralized media, curators ‘defined’ what music, movies or TV was ‘good’ or ‘not good’. Today, good is relative; “mainstream” still exists but it is moved more by the consumers themselves.  Thousands of niche markets thrive on the internet…. or so we like to think so…

About Content

The thing is, our perception of what is “high quality” or “low quality”; what does it really signify other than our perception? Are we ‘forced’ to acknowledge a certain level of ‘quality’ by our peers, or the people we choose to associate us with? And what basis is our judgment made on something of ‘high quality’ or not? Is it something real and tangible, or is it an unspoken convention? Certainly a standard of quality is easily perceivable for physical products, but does this apply to products which fall under intellectual property?

If the perception of quality was a democracy, then the things said as ‘high-quality’ would be a fringe party, and the ruling party would be Kangen Band/ST 12 listeners. But yet, many claim the rise of Kangen Band, ST12 and similar bands as the ‘decline of music’. Where is the decline, if not only a shift of interest of the “mainstream”? And, who’s to say, that this so-called “mainstream” had not existed before? My guess is, with curated, centralized media, this trend did not show , but with the growth of the internet and evolution of RBT – cheap and accessible by anybody with a phone, as opposed to expensive CDs in equally expensive malls – the numbers show what the majority really likes. So is it really a ‘decline’, or simply a shift to something truer to reality?

So is “high quality” now not a standard, but simply a market segment?

The flipside to this is that because the internet has decentralized media, and personal views have become more important due to the rise in social media, everyone is bombarded to the point of information overload. Does this information overload lead to consumers becoming self-curators, or are they overwhelmed by it and so can only respond to basic, instinctive wants and needs? Or would “selective ignorance” propagate, where the person ignores everything that doesn’t interest him/her or does not fit within their defined set of values or beliefs? Keeping an open mind becomes difficult if you have to receive all that information – your head would explode. Self-inflicted filters and curating systems have to be applied… and thus we become more segmented and fragmented, because of our inability to absorb anything beyond our subconscious curating…

Well, that explains a lot of things.

Exactly 1 year ago, Saskia and I packed our bags – 2 large suitcases, 32 kg each; 1 small suitcase, 10 kg, a large backpack and tote bag – and went to Soekarno-Hatta International airport. Our parents were there, and a few of our friends were kind enough to see us off, to an adventure of a lifetime. We were moving to Vietnam.

After 2 apartments (we moved to an apartment complex in a nicer area in April) and right now in the middle of a move to a new office building, we’ve had the opportunity to take trips to Phan Thiet and the Mekong Delta, and I’ve had the opportunity to visit Hanoi.

Needless to say, the challenges that we both faced were mostly beyond our expectations – and then some. It’s been crazy – the workplace challenges are almost totally different than what I was used to in Indonesia, not to mention the frequent language barrier. The weekends are bliss – every weekend is like a holiday, if only to enjoy the city (which we still don’t know all corners of it yet) or just to go out to the movies with friends. There is a close-knit Indonesian community in HCMC, which despite living all around the city, they manage to communicate and get together often, through planned yearly events like Pesta Rakyat (a sort of Independence Day celebration, but done in June at the beginning of school holidays).

Despite the sometimes incomprehensible challenges at work, I’ve managed to learn a lot – since our company works in TV production (including franchises like Vietnam’s Got Talent, which is currently in casting stage right now), movie production and distribution (local and overseas titles), cinema (we own 2 cinemas), cable TV channels (a financial news channel and MTV Vietnam) and many other things including development of Digital programs, I’ve had the opportunity to be involved with all those projects, and expand my skill in marketing and business development. I’m particularly proud of the fact that I’ve been able to train the marketing team into an efficient, independent team. But of course, the guys in the team were the ones who did the good work, I just showed them the way.

I know I’m not the smartest or the most skilled of workers but I hope that my time in Vietnam has – and will continue – to improve me; but if all else fails, the food is GREAT!! I might miss Indonesian food a lot, but between homecooked meals expertly made by Saskia to a profound selection of Vietnamese and other food (Italian, French, Korean, even 1 Indonesian restaurant), we can safely say that we are eating very well here . We usually take anyone who comes visit us in HCMC to one of the best selections of Vietnamese food, with reasonable prices to boot (since we know to avoid the more, um, tourist-oriented spots).

Living abroad has let me gained more perspective on many things, and many insights to a way of life and thinking that is so similar but so different than ours. It also has let me reflect on what is truly important – family, friends, and wanting to improve life as a whole, beyond material means. No, I haven’t become that religious yet, but I have affirmed my belief that our everyday work must have a lasting benefit for us all outside of fleeting monetary benefits. That business needs to be something more than chasing profits and increasing shareholder value. Business needs to improve our quality of life – especially the long term.

I am looking forward to see where the road will take us next!

It’s very tempting to go into a heated discussion on which time of day would be perfect for a radio ad placement, but if we don’t remember the mission, we engross ourselves into an argument of some campaign element that would only give us, say, 10 more customers. We’re so focused on perfecting our jump shot when we should be practicing strategies.

It’s also very tempting to focus on the big picture so much, you forget how you got there. Dropping revenues must be replaced by new revenue channels, disregarding the need to build it properly to ensure it is sustainable. Like finishing a complicated Lego model, but forgetting how to build it. Shareholder pressure can do that do you.

I’d rather have a team that plays a mediocre game this season and goes on a winning streak next season, rather than have a winning season now and lose all my players next season due to injuries. Good things need to be built with a mission, and built with discipline. And that mission should transcend short-term goals (like money, because money always goes away again).

So, a delicate balance is needed between looking at the big picture and making sure the process is sustainable. That’s why you need to make sure you have the right people around you – which might not be people who always agree with you.

So, what’s your mission?